


Time Wounds All Heels

by werepope (quiteparadise)



Series: The Start of Something [4]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fatherhood, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 22:18:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5432840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiteparadise/pseuds/werepope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having four kids makes nights alone occasions.</p><p> </p><p>Prompt: Burnt Dinner</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Wounds All Heels

**Author's Note:**

> "If you're not having fun, you're doing something wrong."
> 
> \- Groucho Marx

Aragorn gets an advanced copy of a new video game and invites Legolas and Bain over on a Friday night to marathon it. Thranduil has the usual niggling concerns over content – he will never forget the parental failing of a ten-year-old Legolas playing Grand Theft Auto, of witnessing his son commit a digital rampage with nothing but a broken bottle and a slightly bored expression. But Legolas isn't ten anymore and the innocent days of side-scrollers are gone, so he lets them go without even a single Google query.

Bard squeezes his shoulder comfortingly and does a half-decent job of hiding his amusement.

Sigrid's school chorus has made it into a regional competition that she insists is not a big deal, even though it requires her to stay overnight in a hotel a whole state away. Bard hovers at her door as she packs a rolling suitcase full of the necessities: hair spray and a curling iron and a half-empty tub of styling product with the kind of minimalist packaging that probably means it cost more than Bard's jeans. Her dress is already zipped up into a borrowed garment bag and laid carefully over the foot of the bed, black kitten heels on her feet to break them in. When Bard drops her off at the school, he cups her cheeks and kisses her forehead and lets her go without a fuss.

Thranduil keeps a hand between them on the bench seat on the way there, fingertips pressing into his thigh.

Tilda's friend Melanie is having a slumber party for her birthday. Tilda spent a week finding the perfect present for her, toting the iPad around and getting everyone's opinion on these fairy wings, this plush pterodactyl, that pony. (Thranduil was far too enthusiastic about the pony, which was cream-colored and named Stars Moon. Bard nearly pulled something diving to take the iPad from them before the idea could gain any real traction.) Bard took her to the book store to find a book about ponies in lieu of the actual thing, and she helped Thranduil make cookies to take with her.

Bard writes permission for her to ride the bus with Melanie on Friday afternoon, and before she leaves for school both Bard and Thranduil tell her she can call them if she wants to come home, no matter what time it is.

It's not until halfway through the day that it occurs to either of them that the kids are all gone for the night. Bard calls from the garage to tell Thranduil that he'll be leaving as early as he can manage. Thranduil growls rather filthily into the phone and promises that he'll have Bard up against the door as soon as he steps through it.

Neither of these things actually happen.

For the past six months Bard has been working on a slow and ever-evolving restoration project. It's not his speciality or even his wheelhouse, but the customer is a friend of his and he pays enough to make up for the long hours the car spends on one of the shop's lifts. It's not a small cost considering the bread and butter mechanic work that keeps the shop afloat: brake pad changes and filter replacements, in and out as quickly as they can manage. And Bard doesn't run a body shop, he doesn't have to worry about fabricating panels or replacing the rotted out floor, but he's still dumped well over a hundred and fifty hours into the car from go. It's just bad luck that the owner shows up for a progress report on this of all days.

Bard hustles him through some of the finer points, or tries to at least. This is the problem with car guys, he thinks, as they go round for the second time on the cost of machining replacement parts versus buying original versus new reproductions. There is almost no detail too small to have an opinion about.

He doesn't manage to shake the guy off and duck out of the shop until a full thirty minutes after the doors are closed, although to be fair that's half an hour earlier than he usually gets away with.

At home he finds Thranduil still in the studio, apologetic and looking a little glassy-eyed from too many hours spent stitching sequins.

"Give me five minutes," Thranduil says, biting a new piece of gossamer thread free from the industrial size spool. His table is a mess of sparks and shine that, horrifyingly, seem to be laid out in some kind of order. Work that can't be done with little hands making big messes. Bard backs out of the room with his own hands up.

He takes a shower that stretches from his usual five minutes to a luxurious fifteen once he manages to turn on the message setting, bracing his hands on the stone and letting the water beat a tattoo on his bent neck. He puts on joggers and a sweater because honestly if he's going to bother getting dressed at all it had better be comfortable. He opens a bottle of wine and drinks a glass while he starts dinner: a pot of water on to boil for pasta, garlic and onion in a skillet to start the sauce. He gets all the way through to toasting bread before Thranduil finally emerges from his spangly prison, blinking like his eyes aren't doing precisely what they should be.

"Sorry," Thranduil says, reaching for him, but Bard cuts him off. Puts a glass of wine in his hand and steers him toward the couch.  
"It's fine. Sit down. I'm almost done."

Of course Thranduil doesn't sit as much as he unfurls into an elegant sprawl like the sudden, energetic blossoming of an orchid or some other, less put-upon simile. He reclines against the arm of the couch, one leg folded up on the cushion, and drains his glass in a series of long swallows.

Bard can't quite force himself to look away until Thranduil has resurfaced with a wet gasp. He clears his throat and fumbles a bit putting the bread in the oven. "How's it coming?"

"It would be coming more quickly if you were over here," Thranduil says, lifting his glass for a refill.

Bard's not sure if that was a come-on or just a request that got distracted halfway through, but he brings the wine with him when he joins Thranduil on the couch just to be sure, sinking back into him with a sigh. Thranduil grunts a bit for the weight, combs his fingers through Bard's nearly-dry hair, smiles against his temple. He's not one to turn down a snuggle, even with his glass still empty.

"If I have to look at one more sparkle tonight, I'm going to light something on fire."

"I'll do what I can," Bard promises and Thranduil shifts a bit beneath him, minor but necessary adjustments that end up with Bard's head tipped back against his shoulder and Thranduil's arm draped over his chest.

"That includes your eyes," Thranduil says, sounding more strained than sugary while he tries to reach the wine bottle on the coffee table, fingers just grazing the smooth glass neck. Bard snorts and stretches a leg out to drag the table a few inches closer. Thranduil huffs, pleased, triumphant, into Bard's hair and drinks straight from the bottle like the classy, classy man that he is.

"Wino," Bard accuses gently, laugh caught up in a sudden yawn.  Thranduil skims a heavy hand down his chest and hums agreement.

Bard falls asleep on the not-so incongruous thought that Thranduil's hands are just as scarred as his own.

He wakes to Thranduil snoring oh, so faintly in his ear and the acrid stench of smoke.

He leaves bruises behind shoving himself up to his feet, gets a few of his own when he stumbles into the too-close coffee table and bangs up his shins. He curses quietly until he remembers that the kids aren't home, at which point he lets go, dropping f-bombs with every wave of his makeshift cookie sheet fan.

Thranduil pings from window to window, door to door, throwing everything open to let out the smoke, and for a while they're both in surprise-fueled panic mode, but it fades in the rush of cold air that leaves him laughing at every "fuck" out of Bard's mouth. He's breathless with it by the time he makes it to the kitchen to turn on the fan over the stove.

Bard curses him too, just for good measure, and Thranduil drapes himself against his chest with an aching sigh.

"I'm sorry," he gasps, "I'm sorry. You should hear yourself."

Bard smacks him with the cookie sheet. A few strands of snow-blond hair static cling to the metal. "One night off and this is how we spend it," he grouses. Post-nap grumpiness, he knows, but knowing doesn't make it disappear. He's equally grateful and irritated that Thranduil only smiles and kisses at his mouth in amused understanding.

"Forget it. Let's go to the bedroom, away from the smoke." Thranduil ducks his head enough to nip at the edge of Bard's jaw. "Bet I can make you swear some more."

Bard thinks about the long-gone pleasure of Thranduil's body tranquil and sleep-warm beneath him. He thinks about Thranduil stripping under the covers of their bed, out of the bite of the cold air from the open windows. His responding smile might be more of a smirk. It's hard to distinguish the exact shape of it, pressed against Thranduil's mouth as it is.

"Yeah," he says. "Make–"

On the counter, his phone lights up a second before it starts ringing, and knowing that it's Tilda from the very start doesn't make it any less frustrating, although Thranduil's sudden bout of cursing helps a bit.

"Well," he says, smoothing a hand over his beard and laughing into the hollow of his palm. Tiredness hits him again like a sucker punch. "We did promise."

Thranduil leaves him to return to the couch and the abandoned bottle of wine. "And what about your promises to me, Mr. Bowman?"

Bard grabs at him before he can drift too far out of reach, reeling him back in close, close, until they have to slot together instead of occupying independent space. He wraps an arm around Thranduil's waist to keep him locked just there.

"That's 'sir' to you," he says to Thranduil. "Hello, baby," he says into the phone.

Tilda's voice sounds thin and a little wobbly but he doesn't hear a word of it because Thranduil presses his mouth to Bard's other ear and breathes:

"It still counts as swearing if you're choking it out around a gag, you know."


End file.
